Judge orders government to decide on polar bears

Sea ice and glaciers are melting. Snow caves, where female seals bear their young, collapse. Young seals have no blubber for protection so they die when cold weather comes. As seals die, so do polar bears. Because of melting ice and fewer seals, polar bears struggle to survive. They swim from ice floe to ice floe in search of seals. As the ice melts, floes drift further apart and undernourished bears drown in between.

Science thus paints a dim picture of the polar bear's future.

The summer sea-ice, which the bears need to hunt seals, shrank last year to a record low, with about 40 per cent less ice than the long-term average between 1979 and 2000. Scientists report that polar bears are resorting to cannibalism and that their reproduction rates are steadily falling.

Last year, the U.S. Geological Survey predicted that two-thirds of the world's polar bear population would likely be extinct by 2050. Several leading scientists predict that the Arctic could be ice-free by the summer by 2012.

Stone-walling

The polar bear is under a growing threat of extinction because of the significant loss of Arctic sea ice related to global warming. But the Bush administration has been dragging its feet on whether to list the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act.

Democrats on Capitol Hill say the Bush administration has been stone-walling because it plans to sell a multi-billion-dollar oil and gas lease on the Chukchi Sea, off the Alaskan coast, a region rich with polar bears.

This foot-dragging -- if that's what is -- may change soon.

Last Monday, a federal judge in California ordered the Bush administration to decide by May 15 whether the polar bear deserves protection under the act.

U.S. District Court Judge Claudia Wilken's ruling -- if it stands on appeal -- will force the Interior Department to determine whether climate change is pushing polar bears toward extinction. The agency had first proposed listing polar bears in December 2006 because warmer temperatures are shrinking the sea ice they depend on for survival. But then officials delayed a final decision on the matter for months.

After the Interior Department missed its own January 2008 deadline, three environmental advocacy groups -- the Center for Biological Diversity, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Greenpeace -- sued Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne and the Fish and Wildlife Service in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

In a court filing, Interior's Kempthorne proposed making a final decision by June 30. But Judge Wilken rejected that plan.

The judge wrote that, "Defendants offer no specific facts that would justify the existing delay, much less further delay. To allow Defendants more time would violate the mandated listing deadlines under the (act) and congressional intent that time is of the essence in listing threatened species."

The ruling in California is a big victory for those worried about the extinction of the polar bear. A Washington Post story quoted Kassie Siegel, climate program director at the Tucson, Ariz.-based Center for Biological Diversity, who was the lead author of the 2005 petition that prompted Interior to consider listing the species.

"By May 15th," Siegel said, "the polar bear should receive the protections it deserves under the Endangered Species Act, which is the first step toward saving the polar bear and the entire Arctic ecosystem from global warming."

As Siegel notes, the final ruling on the polar bear's status under the Endangered Species Act could have far-reaching implications for the nation's climate policy.

Simply listing the species as endangered would force federal agencies to take steps to ensure that any action they authorize or fund or carry out will not jeopardize the polar bears' continued survival or adversely affect the bears' critical habitat. And, if listed under the act, the Fish and Wildlife Service will be required to prepare a recovery plan that includes specific measures for the bears' protection.

If Judge Wilken's ruling stands, it could be a lifeline for the clearly endangered polar bear. And it could be a seismic shift in our political approach to the problems caused by global warming.